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Suspects in the vandalism of George W. Childs Park have been identified, the National Park Service announced Saturday morning.
Red graffiti, dated March 21 and featuring the names Tara and Anthony, was reported to the NPS by a person driving past. Though Childs Park remains closed for restoration and improvements following two 2018 winter storms, the entrance stone is visible from the road.
The NPS thanked the public for tips and said that “Those responsible for the graffiti on the Brooks Woolen Mill ruins and the original 1892 date stone have been identified, located, and charges are pending. No other information is being released at this time.”
The vandalism has left the National Park Service with the delicate task of finding the least harmful way to remove paint from the ruins and stone.
“We’ll be starting with the gentlest method that we can use to see if that will start to remove it, and then it’ll be an iterative process to try to keep removing it without damaging the stone or the mortar in the wall or the carving on the entrance stone,” said Kara Deutsch, resource management and science division manager at Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.
The process will start by testing a remover on the stone, and could increase to “a more manual method,” she said. “If really necessary, there are some other types of micro-abrasions, but it’s something that we would bring in experts from another part of the National Park Service to help us with.”
More on Childs Park:NPS awards contract for trail work at Childs Park; reopening expected in 2024
The NPS has dealt with graffiti on historic structures before, “and a lot of times it does leave behind that ghosting, and we have to try to fade that out as well. It takes a bit of work to make that actually disappear,” Deutsch said.
Removing paint from the stone will be more difficult than it would be on some other surfaces, and “we may never get rid of all of it. It may take many years for it to just fade out and have nature take its course,” she said.
Exact charges have not been determined, said Todd Roessner, a supervisory U.S. park ranger, on Friday before the suspects were identified. “It could be a simple park violation,” for which the maximum sentence is a $5,000 fine and six months in jail, or it could be a felony violation of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, depending on damage thresholds and the structure’s historic value.
“This park and this history belongs to all of us,” Roessner said. “For someone to put their name on it and to ruin others’ enjoyment here is completely inappropriate and illegal, so we’re going to be following up on that.”
In the coming weeks and months, once the ground is sufficiently stable and thawed, crews will be completing trail work with the goal of reopening in summer 2024, said park spokeswoman Kathleen Sandt.
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